What About Geography?

What About Geography?

For years parents have been hearing rumblings about children not learning geography in school. Some alarming statistics surfaced recently concerning what government school students know about the world they live on. National Geographic recently conducted a survey, asking 56 geographic and current events questions of young people in nine countries. How did the United States do?

Only 13 percent could find Iraq, Iran or Israel on a map of the Middle East;

About 30 percent could find New Jersey on a map;

On a world map, Americans could find on average only seven of 16 countries;

Only 71 percent could locate the Pacific Ocean, the largest body of water on earth;

Among Americans, age 18 to 24, only 17 percent could find Afghanistan on a map;

With 56 possible, America scored a 23, only two points higher than Mexico and just three points from a failing grade.

Why is this? Parents, citizens must understand that the "standards" for geography are not primarily objective: what the child should know, they are primarily subjective: what the child must demonstrate mastery of. In other words, objective knowledge is not paramount, process—behavior, procedure (Stiggins, 1986) is; the state exit outcomes, by whatever called, being the "criteria by which performance is judged" (Stiggins, 1986). The ultimate goal being to ascertain whether the child demonstrates proficiency of the "new basics": teamwork, critical thinking, making decisions, communication, adapting to change and understanding whole systems (WTECB, 1994).

Where does geography, or math, science, English, history or any other liberal arts endeavor for that matter, fit in to this agenda? Knowledge will only be incorporated as it is used and applied in addressing unit themes or thematic units where the focus is a social or life-related issue (teaching in context or making education real). In other words, if it necessary for the child to know where Brazil, North America, Arctica or Antarctica, New York or California are in studying a thematic unit or unit theme on the "destruction of the Amazon Rain Forest ... global warming ... ozone depletion ... pollution ... ", such will be taught. Otherwise it won't. Note that while the cause of these social or life-related issues is still unproven, cause is presented as fact based on junk science or pseudo-science. This, alone, turns performance-based education from education to an agenda.

Why don't students know where Tulsa, Oklahoma, Los Angeles, California, Dallas, Texas, Iran, Iraq, Kenya, Vietnam are on a map? Early on in education reform in the Nine Mile Falls School District, when opposition was forming, the Superintendent of another eastern Washington school district was brought in to "get parents on board" the education reform train. One of the most revealing statements made by that superintendent that night was that geography and the teaching of it weren't important.

In the world of education reform, where demonstrating the wanted behaviors is more important than knowledge, one can readily understand why students don't know where the Pacific Ocean, Iran, Iraq or Israel are, why they don't know where the Berlin Wall is, or Berlin for that matter, can't speak English, don't know the classical authors or their works, can't articulate their thoughts on paper, can't make change without a cash register.

Sources:

Stiggins, Richard; Evaluating Students by Classroom Observation: Watching Students Grow; Washington, DC: National Education Association; 1986.

Workforce Training and Education Coordinating Board; High Skills, High Wages; Olympia; 1994.

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